AutoGrant™ AI Judge
Make a defensible pursuit decision before the writing starts.
AI Judge evaluates whether an opportunity is eligible, aligned, deliverable, competitive, and strategically worthwhile. It shows the reasoning, missing information, risks, and conditions behind the result so your team can make a better human decision.
AI Judge supports a human pursuit decision. It does not predict the future or guarantee an award.
Pursue
The opportunity holds up across every dimension.
Pursue with conditions
Proceed once the listed conditions are resolved.
Hold for readiness
Revisit when the missing capacity or evidence exists.
Do not pursue
A documented no-go, with the reasoning attached.
Ineligible
The published criteria rule the organization out.
Every verdict carries its reasoning, the information still missing, and the risks behind it.
Definition
What is AI Judge?
AI Judge is a structured pursuit assessment for a specific grant opportunity. It evaluates six dimensions (eligibility, mission alignment, capacity fit, competitive position, strategic value, and evidence confidence) and ends in a documented verdict: Pursue, Pursue with conditions, Hold for readiness, Do not pursue, or Ineligible.
It shows the reasoning, missing information, risks, and conditions behind the result, so the people accountable for the decision can challenge it, correct it, and own it.
Why go/no-go matters
Every weak pursuit consumes capacity that could have strengthened a better one.
Organizations often begin writing because a deadline is close, a keyword matches, or someone forwarded a notice. Problems surface later:
- The organization is not truly eligible.
- The work does not match the funder's actual priorities.
- Required data, partners, registrations, or match are missing.
- The delivery or reporting burden exceeds capacity.
- The likely field is stronger than expected.
- The award would pull the organization away from strategy.
- The opportunity is promising, but not yet ready.
AI Judge makes those questions visible before the largest investment of time.
The dimensions
What does AI Judge evaluate?
A list tells you what exists. AI Judge helps determine what deserves your time. It assesses six dimensions before your team commits.
- EligibilityThreshold
- Applicant type, geography, registration, revenue or size rules, partnership, match, program exclusions, deadlines, and other threshold requirements.
- Mission alignmentScored
- The relationship between the funder's intent and the organization's actual programs, populations, outcomes, geography, and strategic priorities.
- Capacity fitScored
- Staffing, partnerships, data, delivery model, financial administration, reporting, timeline, facilities, systems, and leadership attention.
- Competitive positionScored
- Differentiators, track record, prior awards, geographic relevance, partnerships, evidence quality, incumbent strength, and visible field conditions.
- Strategic valueScored
- Mission advancement, long-term funding path, relationship value, evidence-building potential, restrictions, opportunity cost, and obligations.
- Evidence confidenceAssessed
- What is known, inferred, missing, stale, or dependent on human confirmation.
Sample scorecard
A sample pursuit decision
One opportunity proceeds once its conditions are met. The other ends in a documented no-go, and a no-go is a result: it returns proposal time to the grants that fit.
Regional Youth Workforce Innovation Initiative
Eligibility: ConfirmedThreshold: pass/failApplicant type and geography meet the published criteria. The organization must verify that the employer partner meets the required role before submission.
- Mission alignment
- 91/100
The funder's youth-workforce priority maps directly to the organization's core program, target population, service area, and outcomes.
- Capacity fit
- 72/100
The delivery model is credible. Quarterly performance reporting requires a named data owner and a clearer participant-tracking process.
- Competitive position
- 58/100
The organization has strong local partnerships and lived experience. The likely field includes larger prior grantees with more formal longitudinal data.
- Strategic value
- 86/100
A win would expand a core program and establish evidence and funder history for a larger multi-year opportunity.
Evidence confidence: ModerateStructured assessmentTwo claims need a source before drafting.
- Known
- Programs, population, service area, partner roster
- Inferred
- The employer partner's eligible role
- Missing
- Match documentation, a source for longitudinal outcomes
Verdict: Pursue with conditions
Proceed after:
- Confirming the required employer partner.
- Naming the data owner.
- Documenting the match.
- Strengthening longitudinal outcomes evidence.
- Scheduling a program-officer conversation where permitted.
Decision: Pursue with conditions · Owner: Director of Development · Recorded: sample date · v2
Missing information (2): match documentation, a source for longitudinal outcomes
Sources: RFP §3.2, organization profile
Statewide Capital Facilities Expansion Grant
Verdict: Do not pursue
Capacity recovered: about three weeks of proposal work for the grants that fit.Sample estimate
Why:
- Capacity conflict: the proposal and first-year reporting overlap the close-out of an existing award.
- Competitive position is weak: the likely field favors applicants with a completed capital campaign.
- Strategic value is limited: the project sits outside the current three-year plan.
Revisit if:
- The current award closes out and reporting staff are available.
- The capital campaign reaches its lead-gift milestone.
The output
What is in an AI Judge scorecard?
Every scorecard should show:
- Final verdict
- Eligibility status
- Dimension scores or structured assessments
- Rationale
- Sources and assumptions
- Missing information
- Risks and disqualifiers
- Conditions required before pursuit
- Questions for the funder
- Readiness actions
- Human decision and decision owner
- Date and version
A team member can challenge the analysis, add relationship context, correct facts, and record a different final decision with rationale.
Honest boundaries
What is AI Judge not?
- A guarantee of award
- A mathematical probability unless a separately validated model supports that claim
- A substitute for legal or program guidance
- A replacement for a funder conversation
- A reason to pursue every high-scoring opportunity
- An autonomous executive decision
It is a transparent decision-support process that makes the basis of a pursuit visible.
From decision to work
What happens after the pursuit decision?
The decision record stays connected to the work, so the team can see what it believed, what conditions were resolved, and what changed.
Once the team approves the pursuit, AutoGrant can carry the opportunity into:
- 1Solicitation requirements
- 2Evidence and information requests
- 3Owners and dependencies
- 4Drafting plan
- 5Budget coordination
- 6Review gates
- 7Submission readiness
- 8Award obligations and reporting
When writing starts, your drafts are mapped to the funder’s requirements, and a person checks the facts and citations before anything is submitted.
Across organizations
The go/no-go question your team is actually asking.
Nonprofit
Is the opportunity aligned to a real program, and can the team provide the outcomes and reporting required?
Municipality
Is the project ready, eligible, funded for match, approved across departments, and deliverable within the performance period?
Rural hospital
Does the opportunity fit community need, clinical strategy, workforce, partners, data, and operating capacity?
Research team
Does the topic fit the science and sponsor intent, and can the institution meet routing, compliance, data, budget, and submission requirements?
Startup
Does the topic fit the technical roadmap and commercialization strategy, or would it create grant-shaped work that distracts from the company?
Keep exploring
Bring the opportunity your team is debating.
We will prepare a preliminary AI Judge scorecard and walk through the evidence, assumptions, risks, and conditions in a 20-minute working session.